Silent Möbius
Udon Entertainment Viz Media (previous) | demographic = Shōnen | magazine = Comic Dragon | first = 1991 | last = 2003 | volumes = 12 | volume_list = }} Bandai Entertainment | network = Animax, TV Tokyo | first = 7 April 1998 | last = 29 September 1998 | episodes = 26 | episode_list = }} is a twelve-volume manga, a 26-episode anime series, and a pair of motion pictures, created by manga artist Kia Asamiya. Both anime versions have been licensed by Bandai Entertainment. It is heavily influenced by the film ''Blade Runner and is centered on the lives of the Attacked Mystification Police Force (AMP), a dedicated group of all-female police officers with varying talents and personalities protecting Tokyo from an invasion of extra-dimensional creatures called Lucifer Hawks. It is published in English by Udon Entertainment; previously it was published in English by Viz Media.Aoki, Deb. "Udon to Publish New Editions of Silent Möbius Manga." About.com. Saturday February 21, 2009. Retrieved on September 5, 2009. Story In 1999 Gigelf Liqueur, aided by the Magician's Guild, set into motion a plan to open a gate between Earth and the world of Nemesis. The intent was to exchange Earth's polluted air and water with clean air and water from Nemesis. To aid in this endeavor, a huge cyclotron was built under Tokyo. Unfortunately for all involved, Ganossa Maximilian - Gigelf's old apprentice - sabotaged the plan, opening the gate early and perverting the gate for his own means. Following this event, Gigelf and the Magician's Guild battled an invasion of Lucifer Hawk (the name for the inhabitants of Nemesis) for a number of years. Gigelf was killed in 2006 and it would seem that the rest of the Guild met similar fates over the next few years. In 2023, Rally Cheyenne, daughter of Guild member Lufa Cheyenne and born mixed heritage (her father was from Nemesis), felt partially responsible for the growing attacks on innocent humans by marauding creatures from Nemesis. She started the organization with a mere three officers (Kiddy Phenil, Lebia Maverick and Nami Yamigumo) and a sub-commander (Mana Isozaki). Over the next few years, she added Yuki Saiko, Katsumi Liqueur and Lum Cheng to the team, aiding in the fight to protect Earth from the vicious Lucifer Hawk. Characters Main characters ; Rally Cheyenne: Voiced by: Toshiko Fujita (Japanese), Melora Harte (English, Streamline), Marcy Goldberg (English, Ocean) : Rally is the leader and founder of AMP. Rally does not wear the AMP uniform, but instead dresses in formal business suits. : As commander of the AMP, Rally is highly concerned with the welfare and well being of the officers under her command. She realizes that her officers undergo stresses totally unlike that of normal police officers, and thus, is more concerned with results than specific regulations. Rally is very business-like in all her dealings, both with her own officers and with other police officials. Rally even has a sense of humor, but it's kept hidden. : There is little hard data to be found on Rally. Her personal files contain a large number of blanks. The age given above is conjectural: in the tenth volume of the manga (set in early 2030), she refers to her first meeting with Ganossa Maximillian as occurring thirty years ago (1999 or 2000) and that she was eight at the time. However, she states in volume 3 (2027) that she was born thirty years ago. : Her private life is a total mystery, as well as such simple details as where she lives. If she has any romantic attachments is unknown. It is known that Rally has a sister by the name of Rosa, who has sided with the Lucifer Hawk. : Rally and Rosa are half-Lucifer Hawk. This gives them great magical powers, though they are rarely shown. When Rosa was first introduced, Rally experienced flashbacks to her childhood that included persecution of the 'devil's children.' As a result, the older sibling is often reluctant to use her powers. : Their parents are most likely dead; a woman named Lufa (spelling uncertain) with a strong resemblance to Rally showed up in one episode of the TV series, Mobius Klein, with a few indications that she was Rally's mother. She was part of the old Sorcerers' Guild with Gigelf Liqueur, Avalanche Wong, Genvara Cheng, and several others. Her main magical power was teleportation. (In manga 3 she tells her fellow AMP people that her mother was human but her father was from the Lucifer Hawk.) : Rally seems to have significant financial resources, as shown by the fact that she engineered a buyout of the privatized Japanese police department in early 2030 or late 2029. The initial founding of the AMP may also be considered evidence, though it is unknown if she had other backers at the time. ; Kiddy Phenil: Voiced by: Hiromi Tsuru (Japanese), Joyce Kurtz (English, Streamline), Lisa Ann Beley (English, Ocean) : A native of Australia, Kiddy is dark-skinned and dark haired, with matching dark eyes. A former Mega-Tokyo police officer, she was almost killed by a megadyne (i.e. replicant) known as Wire. Rebuilt as a cybergraft upgrade, she later had her body converted to a combat upgrade before joining the new AMP. : Kiddy is a very emotional person, prone to passionate outbursts of frustration and anger. At times, she seems to thirst for violent confrontations with entities and is all to willing to be the first to tangle with the enemy. She applies much of this mentality to her off-duty life, enjoying Tokyo's varied cuisine and exotic nightlife. Kiddy is also supremely confident of the ability of her cyborg body to handle almost any situation and threat. ; Katsumi Liqueur: Voiced by: Naoko Matsui (Japanese), Iona Morris (English, Streamline), Nicole Oliver (English, Ocean) : Katsumi is the daughter of the Gigelf and Fuyuka Liqueur, who were respectively the most powerful sorcerer and sorceress of their generation. She herself is a powerful sorceress in her own right and bears her father's sentient sword Grospoliner (aka "The Emperor of Swords") in battle against entities and supernatural threats of all kinds. Initially, Katsumi was highly distrustful of the AMP in general and Kiddy in particular, but now, she is their most powerful ally and Kiddy's closest friend. : Gigelf Liqueur was the leader of Project Gaia, an undertaking to use magic and technology to improve the world in partnership with Nemesis, the world of the Lucifer Hawk. Fuyuka Liqueur née Hazuki was originally a television news reporter until she fell in love with Gigelf. Presumably, she discovered her own magical powers at that time. : Despite her awesome heritage, Katsumi is a good natured woman, who takes her responsibilities as an AMP officer seriously. Her one true flaw would be her reckless streak that often causes her to take rash actions and decisions when facing powerful entities. : In the anime it is stated that Katsumi has the "blood of the Lucifer Hawk in her veins", and that Gigelf, her father, had a Lucifer Hawk ancestor. Gigelf preferred to see the Lucifer Hawk blood and powers as a blessing from God rather than a curse. Katsumi on the other hand, cannot cope upon learning of the source of her powers-- and that she is related (albeit distantly) to the monsters she had hunted and killed. It is this coupled with the death of her boyfriend Roy that begins her downward spiral. : However, at the end of the anime series, it is revealed that Katsumi is pregnant with Roy's child. ; Nami Yamigumo: Voiced by: Chieko Honda (Japanese), Wendee Lee (English, Streamline), Nicola Amos (English, Pioneer) : Heir to a long line of Shinto priests and exorcists, Nami is the most tranquil member of the AMP. She is also the tidiest, often shown cleaning up after Katsumi and Kiddy. She uses holy water and ofuda (paper charms with kanji written on them) with varying degrees of effect on Lucifer Hawk. She wields the Kirin Dagger and White Tiger Sword, two of the five sacred relics of the Yamigumo family. Nami also has the ability to detect Lucifer Hawks nearby. : The Yamigumo family owns a Shinto shrine three hundred meters underground. Nami typically wears a kimono instead of the AMP uniform. : Her elder sister Nana has a connection with Mana Isozaki, but its nature is unknown. Her late father Razan Yamigumo initially fought against Gigelf Liqueur, but later joined him in his battle against the Lucifer Hawk. ; Yuki Saiko: Voiced by: Maya Okamoto (Japanese), Juliana Donald (English, Streamline), Kelly Sheridan (English, Ocean) : Yuki is the end result of the super-secret YLPER (similar to ESPER, short for "Ylem perception", according to the manga) Project, which attempted to create 'Esper weapons' though the use of genetic manipulation, it appears that she is one of a group of four (Lisa, Hiroko and Annie are the others). Her primary power is precognition and clairvoyance. However, as it is explained in the anime (episode XRP - 77 by the character Annie) she also possesses the power of the other three subjects, which means that she also possesses the ability to teleport things (including herself and a group of people), create force shields capable of reflecting or neutralising various attacks and cause things to explode with the power of her mind, all of these powers make her capable (as confirmed by Toru in the very last episode of the anime) of "changing the future with her own hands". : She was found by Rally Cheyenne in the street crying and was later recruited for her enormous psychic powers, Yuki is the team's 'mascot', dispatch officer and Lebia's data processing assistant. Although Yuki sometimes acts a little airheaded (she's only a teenager), she can show a great deal of courage when needed : Yuki runs a small coffee shop called Labyrinth, but it is more a hobby than a business since she is a full-time police officer. However, the lease stipulates that as long as she runs it, she doesn't have to pay rent. (It is later revealed that this is because Toru Washio, her life-long love owns the building where she lives in) : She met her love interest, Toru Washio in 1997 as a result of an encounter with a Lucifer Hawk and a magical coffee mill. He was 17 at the time and she was 18. They met again after Yuki returned to her own time, 2027, Toru having waited over thirty years for her. : Towards the end of the anime it is revealed that Touru was also responsible for founding project YLPER - he had sold his soul to Nemesis so that he could see Yuki again, when he finally understood the plans that Ganossa had for Earth and Nemesis, he started the above project so that the humans "had a chance to win over the Lucifer Hawks" (episode 26) ; Lebia Maverick Voiced by: Miho Nagahori (Japanese), Barbara Goodson (English, Streamline), Ellen Kennedy (English, Ocean) : Lebia Maverick is a Visionaire, a person whose cybernetic implants allows her to directly interface with computers. She is a special Alpha-class Visionaire whose databank is in an orbiting satellite named Donald, giving her a memory capacity 3000 times that of an ordinary Visionaire. She created the Artificial Intelligences Huey, Dewey, and Louie. While the obvious reference is to Donald Duck's nephews, it is likely that the naming came as a familiarity with (or homage to) the film Silent Running, where the three robot drones are given the same names. Louie resembles the monolith from the classic film and Arthur C. Clarke novel 2001: A Space Odyssey; Dewey is a vaguely humanoid walking robot; and Huey is a motorcycle. : As second-in-command of the AMP, Lebia often has to deal with paperwork and disciplining Katsumi and Kiddy. As a Visionaire, Lebia has a deep affinity for machines and can be very emotional when one she was close to gets destroyed. She is the pilot of the Simurgh, the AMP's mobile command center and attack craft. : Lebia's grandfather was Stefan Maverick, who created the first Visionaires. He also built the Cyclotron, a massive circular device buried under Tokyo that was central to Project Gaia. ; Lum Cheng : Lum Cheng is the granddaughter of Avalanche Wong and wielder of the Imperial Sword Gesso, which is considered the equal of Grospoliner, though it does not seem to be as intelligent. Lum Cheng uses elemental magic ranging from fire to water. She first appears in the ninth volume of the manga and somewhat after the halfway point of the 26-episode TV series. : Lum Cheng is young and impetuous and also a little arrogant at times, which sometimes has disastrous results. Despite this, she is tenaciously loyal to her friends. According to her grandfather, she is a feng shui master. ; Mana Isozaki: : The commander of the AMP since 2028, Mana is almost as mysterious as Rally. The two are old friends, but little more is known of their relationship. Mana uses magic based on a form of Indian Bhuddism (whatever it is based on, the effects are much like most other forms of magic seen in Silent Mobius: big explosions). She used to be intimately involved with Genvara Cheng, the previous wielder of Gesso. Genvara's connection to Lum Cheng is unknown. : A strict disciplinarian, Mana has little tolerance for tardiness or other offenses. : Mana was once possessed by the Demon Sword Medium which also takes control of Katsumi for a time. Antagonists ; Ganossa Maximillian : Former student or assistant of Gigelf Liqueur, Ganossa has sold his soul and half of his body to the ruler of Nemesis in return for power. He appears significantly older in the TV episode Mobius Klein and Rally's flashback later. Ganossa was responsible for the failure of Project Gaia, sabotaging the link between Earth and Nemesis. He is a mage with formidable powers, possibly Katsumi's equal. : Ganossa is at least fifty to sixty years old during the years covered in the series despite his youthful appearance. This is because of a curse laid on him by the ruler of Nemesis that causes him to age backwards. His hair is a pale bluish lavender in the TV series. ; Rosa Cheyenne : Younger sister of Rally Cheyenne. Half Lucifer Hawk, she left Earth to live on Nemesis years ago and returned to kill her sister in volume 3 of the manga. Her heritage gives her powerful magic, but she does not seem to be her sister's equal. Rosa also fights with a whip. : Rosa appears to be two to four years younger than her sister in the few flashbacks to their childhood. In the present time (2028-30), the difference seems much greater. Her hair is a slightly darker purple than Ganossa's. One of her major motivations is a desire to escape her sister's shadow. ; Daemon Sword Medium : A living sword similar to Grospoliner and Gesso. Unlike those two, it is an evil sword that thrives on suffering and completely controls its wielder. The only way to break its control is to have the sword deal a deadly blow to someone the current wielder/possessed one loves. Mana wielded the sword before the series, and Katsumi is possessed by it in the later part of the series. Kiddy's intervention broke the sword's control, but she survived thanks to her android nature. ; Lucifer Hawk : These creatures come in many forms, and many are shapeshifters. In the TV series, the AMP classifies them into three categories: :* Category III: low-level creatures that are little more than animals. These often resemble snakes or mantas or other animals. :* Category II: beings of slightly less than human intelligence and modest magical powers. There is great variation in their appearance. These usually appear capable of summoning various category III Lucifer Hawks that act as their "minions". :* Category I: typically somewhat humanoid with magical powers equal to those of even the most power human mages. At least as intelligent as humans, this category is very eloquent and prone to various mind games as shown in the anime. :* Category IV: Human-Lucifer Hawk hybrids. Not a real category in the AMP's classification, as it only appears in an illusion crafted by Ganossa Maximillian to trap Katsumi Liqueur. She and the Cheyenne sisters are the only known members of this class. : The more powerful Lucifer Hawks are capable of assuming human form and large collections of lower level ones can take on the form of large objects, such as the AMP's Simurgh command vehicle. Lucifer Hawks can meld with physical objects such as buildings or computers. The more powerful ones have great regenerative powers, but ordinary handguns can kill the lesser ones. : Lucifer Hawks are capable of breeding with humans, as evidenced by the Cheyenne sisters. According to Grospoliner, Katsumi (and possibly other mages) have distant blood ties to the Lucifer Hawk from liaisons many generations ago. Episode listing of the TV series Each episode has two titles (with different meanings in most cases) in the Japanese original, one English title in Roumaji and one Japanese title in Kanji. Some of the English titles are uppercase only so this notation is intentional here. References # # # External links * * (Movie 1) * (Movie 2) * (TV series) * Silent Möbius (anime) at CAR (episode reviews and story analysis, including comparison between manga and anime) * [http://web.archive.org/web/20040407173335/www.animerica-mag.com/features/10.07/silentmobius.html Animerica review] Category:Action anime and manga Category:Anime series Category:Drama anime and manga Category:Fantasy anime and manga Category:Science fiction anime and manga Category:Supernatural anime and manga Category:Cyberpunk anime and manga Category:Viz Media manga Category:Anime of 1991 Category:Anime of 1992 Category:Anime of 1998 Category:Manga of 1991 Category:Shōnen manga Category:Bandai Entertainment anime titles Category:Anime films de:Silent Möbius es:Silent Möbius it:Silent Möbius ja:サイレントメビウス pt:Silent Möbius tl:Silent Möbius zh:魔法陣都市 # :Numbered list item Insert non-formatted text here Big text